SamHartmen wrote:Is it just me or is F&C locking a lot more stories than they used to? ...I might have to shell out some money, damn my curiosity!

Agreed. And the fact that the 1 Year rate for Print/Digital/Mobile and the 1 Year Digital/Mobile are the same ($249) seems insane! I get 3 years of print/digital/mobile from the Business Journal for much less than that!

F&C's transit articles are unlocked more often than the development articles. This one though appeared on their main site and not on this sort of separate "transit talk" blog: http://finance-commerce.com/transit/

Not a big surprise that the people that chose to live in the suburbs rather than the city like the status-quo and wouldn't even consider riding a bus even with a fancy-pants name slapped on it. The people in the article are just saying things (not liking density or diversity and afraid of crime spreading from the city- the Burnsville McDonald's and Brooklyn Park attempted robbery incident haven't helped perceptions) what a lot of people in the suburbs out here won't say publicly.

Once again let me state I think this whole thing is a waste of money and they should put the money towards Riverview or the Rush Line instead.

Perhaps Met Council was being crazy like a fox by choosing this routing.

Propose route to Lake Elmo which the neighbors predictably kill, then invest that money on another project while telling Washington County "Sorry, we tried really hard to build a transit line out there but it just didn't work out."

nate wrote:Perhaps Met Council was being crazy like a fox by choosing this routing.

Propose route to Lake Elmo which the neighbors predictably kill, then invest that money on another project while telling Washington County "Sorry, we tried really hard to build a transit line out there but it just didn't work out."

As far as I know, Washington County is still the lead on this project. They don't hand it off to the Met Council until later down the road.

So, is it really true that no one here care that this would significantly improve service in urban east St. Paul? That it has one of the densest current routings (west of 694) of any (non-fantasy) planned color line? That the St. Paul portion of the line would travel on a historic transit route with significant redevelopment opportunities? That it runs right through the middle of a historic district that St. Paul has been working (at times desperately) to save, and also through the largest area of racially-concentrated poverty in the Twin Cities?

If Washington wants to blow its entire CTIB budget on a meandering line through the suburbs, fine, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, this project is a Trojan Horse for St. Paul transit benefits, not the other way around.

You're not wrong. But yes, I do find it a little hard to be excited about an expensive guideway adjacent to a freeway with only 3 stops on the East Side (none of which seem like great redevelopment sites given the homes and old commercial buildings that would need to come down, to say nothing of the freeway's de-valuing nature.. Maybe Etna if MnDOT can give up the over-scaled ramps there?). I'm speaking entirely from my gut here (and without a pragmatic/political/monetary considerations), but $485m is a lot of money that could have been maybe spent better while still massively improving East Side transit. Manage existing I-94 center HOT lanes with online (46th St style) stations close-in, freeway exist stations similar to the Orange Line further out, then using existing streets but with signal priority in the more suburban areas. The money saved by doing this could be used to build planned aBRT lines in East St Paul, or even upgrade other routes not studied.

You'd get a better east metro freeway management system, very good bus service to/from the suburbs, and even more transit in the (agreed, very important ES). But, our funding and political structure doesn't allow this fungibility of money or type of infrastructure utilization. So, as always, I feel disappointed and wanting very much more. And, while the benefits to the people and areas east of St Paul are very real, it's hard to be a major transit backer when this is how much we're spending on it. Plus, the insane process that gave us an LPA through a development-hostile municipality that eventually blocked it anyway rather than a place with at least retail and residents and an appetite for some development.

Gold line would be so much more exciting if it had a better end of the line station than an empty cornfield. 1-2 stations in Hudson would be pretty nice. That way Wisconsin could help flip the bill. Also tying the line with the 94 express bus would also allow for a one seat trip from Hudson to Minneapolis. Might be a bit long in the times, but I wonder if people would use that route more than what is currently being proposed.

The western part of this line is still needed to at least the 3M campus. If we're lucky, Lake Elmo's rejection will send this South into my Woodbury's commercial areas, which can densify at a later date like some closer-in areas of the metro currently are.

I don't think this line makes sense, from a ridership or financial or regional equity standpoint, without some extension into Washington County. The Lake Elmo routing at least offered the hope for potential future walkable development; it's hard to imagine that springing up in Woodbury, the way its platted and constructed.

I doubt we would have seen much more than SFHs around any stations in Lake "don't even want to be a suburb" Elmo. Suburban areas like Woodbury are going to need to be retrofitted/urbanized in the future anyways.